Episode 16: Christianity vs. Islam

In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.

                                                                                                         ~ Mark Twain

I was on 9gag and I stumbled upon this and as a Christian I was greatly enraged. Not because it was false but because it fails to encapsulate the whole truth.

To discuss this, much like other academic issues you need to define where you are coming from. This story starts hundreds of years ago, prior to the birth of Christ. In the beginning there was only Judaism. Abraham was a prophet and married to a woman named Sarah. Together they has a son named Isaac. Isaac was a blind old man before he was able to have sons. His first son was Esau, he was born of a slave girl. Esau was tall, hairy and stocky. Isaac also had a legitimate son with his wife, his name was Jacob, Jacob was the opposite of Esau. When the time came for Isaac to give his land to his son Esau, his wife tricked him by dressing Jacob in sheep’s skin and when Jacob gave Isaac his favourite meal and gave his land to Jacob. Esau was furious and then he left Jordan and went to the east. However Jacob stayed there and led the people of Palestine.

This was when Islam was created. Islam was created from Esau, but Jacob went on a Jew and went west to Egypt. Later down the Jacob’s line Moses appeared and he led the people back to the Promised Land. However, God gave Moses strict instructions that when he and the Israelites were to get there they were to kill everything; women, children, farms, cattle, everything. But they didn’t. Later on again in the time after Jesus was born; I am unsure how the story goes but in that time there was a divide between the Jew and some went on as Jews and others became Christians and the Muslims came back to Israel in the time of King David and there was a war between the Muslims and the Christians. The temple of King David was a monolithic structure and it was the centre of the Christian faith. This is where the Israelites are punished, because they did not kill everything when they entered the promised land, the Muslims that were living in Israel at the time revolted and destroyed the temple of King David. Today in Jerusalem the synagogue, the centre of Islamic religion sits on the land where King David’s temple stood. This is the reason for the war in Israel, the west thinks of the war as 200 years old, a childish agitation. NO, it is a war over 2000 years old because the Israelites went into the promised land and they did not follow God’s orders. The land was promised to them by God, that is what the war is about. So when I see a post like this I am enraged. You would not compare Stalin and Churchill or Stalin and JFK, nor would you compare the Dali Lama with Saddam Husain. So do not compare Jacob and Esau. Islam and Christianity are not the same religion by any means and I am sure that my feelings about this are shared with people of Islamic faith.

Episode 15: Above the sound of Ideologies clashing.

'When one voice rules the nation
Just because they're top of the pile
Doesn't mean their vision is the clearest
The voices of the people
Are falling on deaf ears
Our politicians all become careerists...'

                                  Ideology ~ Billy Bragg


Today I want to rant about wars and particularly the war in Afghanistan and Iraq. Recently I was on tumblr (yes I’m that hipster) and I saw a post about 'veterans day' a day in the US where they acknowledge the people that have died in the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. The post said to go and remember the people that have died for our country and the fight for Democracy. Most Americans or people would look at that and feel sad and be fully supportive. It makes me angry and be rest assured I'll tell you why. It's because the people they are remembering were not 'fighting for their country' or 'fighting for democracy' they are there as a part of the Bush administration's revenge for 911. His vendetta against the middle-east and Muslims.

Now I just want to pause and reflect on what it is that I just said. I am aware that it is highly controversial and I probably now have the whole Fox News Network and numerous Americans hunting for my body now. BUT, we have days like Remembrance day and Veterans day for incidents that people have deliberately instigated themselves. It taints the reason for Remembrance Day, ie the ANZACs and the people who faught in the Dardanelles in WWI, not a government's vendetta. The Americans DID NOT NEED to go into Afghanistan, but they did. I do not intend to undermine the lives that were lost in the incidents of 911, it was a tragedy with no justification, but it is not reason to start a war and loose more lives. A body for a body is vengeance not justice.

Episode 14: Who needs an education anyway?

I recently watched this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PPgbdLKL4I on You Tube and I was greatly annoyed by the lack of understanding of how the political process works and how quickly they were to make incorrect assertions. Also please note that before I launch into this I am not a massively Left person. I am a liberal. However, I in no way support the current UK coalition government.

In Britain they have a representative democracy/constitutional monarchy, much like in many other 1st world countries like the US and  Australia. This system means that the people elected (key word) are the candidates that the people have chosen to represent their views and opinions. Which straight away debunks the theory that this boy has about people's opinions not being represented. This is a key element that he seems to have missed and basic knowledge that anyone prepared to comment on the due processes of the system should understand.

To my next point the Prime Minister's question time is an inaccurate view of the world of politics. The everyday business of governance is co-operative, this has to be the case, otherwise legislation and the everyday business of politics would never get done and there would be no point in having a government at all. Question time gives the view that politics is always contentious and nasty. That the politicians are children and are unable to co-operate. This is seen in question times all around the world. It is often seen in Australia, there are countless viral videos of Tony Abbott and his peers acting childish and disrespectful in question time.

My third point is that the questions addressed to the PM are often statements and attacks framed as questions in order to make the PM look bad, or in the case of Dorothy Dixes, make him look better. Yes there are constructive questions asked in question time and they are RARELY questions that can simply be answered yes or no. This is where people watching question time need to have a greater understanding of the world of politics to be able to understand what is going on and another reason why question time in an inaccurate forum to base all of your ideas about the world of politics on. It is not the whole picture!

Fourth point, the political parties are not fighting for the same things, this another inaccuracy that is reflected in question time. David Cameron is a Tory, which means that he is pro-privatization. The reason that Britain is falling further and further into the abyss. He means to increase the divide between the poorest and richest people in Britain, a theme that was reflected in the last Tory government (Thatcher and Major gov.). Prior to 1979, unemployment was on the decline and Britain was more prosperous than ever, until the Thatcher government destroyed the livelihood of at least half of the UK populace. Cameron also intends to get rid of the NHS which would prove to destroy the working-class further. This is a directly opposite view to that of the opposition leader Ed Miliband. How can they all 'team-up' if they have directly opposing views?

Fifth point. You are suggesting that these people are making issues overly complicated. This is true in some respects. However, overall these issues are complicated, they are not yes or no questions and there are many shades of grey. There is no one size fits all because of the massive divide between people in the UK and lack of empathy and entitled attitude of modern-day Britain. They are not arguing trivial issues, unlike the Australian government. Ed Miliband and the other opposing politicians are working to keep the government accountable and work to a more sustainable and equal Britain.

Sixth point, question time is NOT the designated time to be introducing legislation. There is other designated time where that is addressed. Question times is solely an opportunity for questions from MP's to the Prime Minister. Hence the name Prime Minister's Question Time.Question time is a debate and as for the people that are 'falling asleep' they need to show up to represent the views of their electorate/shire.

Seventh point, if you sir were leader, Britain would fall apart faster than it is now. Not to mention Britain does not have a democracy. They have a Constitutional Monarchy with a Representative Democracy! '10 of the best business minds', how do you intend to represent the views of over 60 Million people with 10 people. There are 645 MPs in the house of commons and they struggle to represent all the views of the people of Britain. You cannot possibly get a better result with 10."Alan Sugar and Richard Branson" represent 5% of the UK population.

In conclusion, get a civics education before you give people advice about politics and how it should be run.

Episode 13: Bring on the apocalypse! VOTE ROMNEY!

VOTE ROMNEY! Pass it on!
Now before you stop reading hear me out. Yes this statement was intended to be extremely provocative and no I do not believe that Romney should be president, well not really. I do however believe that there would be a great benefit to him serving a term and this is why.

Back in 2000 a series of mistakes led to the appointment of George W. Bush. When in power he made a series of further mistakes that led to things such as the US and others entering Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as certain perceptions of All Quaeda. However, these mistakes meant that global powers and the Americans were aware of the issues that stem from the US and they were able to act on that knowledge and vote in Barrack Obama.

Since the election of Obama into office he and the democrats have been working to patch up the US and the world after the mistakes of the last government. However the changes made are not as drastic as they should be due to the fact that Obama needs to maintain support with the public and public is less aware of the issues than they should be.

This is where Mitt Romney comes in. As many people know or should know, Romney is well, not the best character to be POTUS. However, I believe that if he was to be elected and make poor decision the public would become increasingly aware of the issues in the world and hence cause the public to reelect Obama and allow him to make big decisions without the level of critique that he is under at present.

And that's why everyone should VOTE ROMNEY!

Episode 11: Who Let the Games Out?

Since the last of few of my blogs have been in the rhelms of something I should yell from a soap box here is another of those, though this is about the gaming industry. What broken street dates will mean for the future of the gaming industry. 

The Australian gaming industry is at serious risk of collapsing, not because of an issue that they have caused themselves, but rather one that the consumer has made, and to most gamers, it isn’t an evident issue. It’s the problem of broken ‘street dates’. In business, a street date is the date a particular product is to be released for sale to the general public and retailers are breaking this date. 

Waiting for a game to be released is the most difficult thing in the life of a gamer. For months leading up to the release, we’re fed trailers and screen shots, getting us ready for the all-important street date. So when a game does break street date, you can guarantee that the last thing a gamer is going to be thinking about are the long-term effects this will have on the industry.  

The process of releasing a game is long and arduous. It all starts early into the development of a game and a release date is set. After the game is finished, a copy is sent to the distributers, who are required to make copies, organize shipping, and generally create more hype surrounding the game. The last stage is when the stores receive their copies of the game, usually two to four days before the release date. The stores are then trusted to sell on the release date. Recently the retailers have made trouble for themselves by deciding to sell before this date; this is what is causing a lot of controversy.  

‘If you think back to the Harry Potter releases, the hype around some of these books it was very rare that you heard of a store that was brave enough to do that.’ says Ingrid Just. This courtesy is not seen in the gaming industry, if the retailers can increase their profit margin, they will. Street dates are there to even out the field for the smaller retailers and they are an important part of the distribution machine that surrounds a massive release.  

It is a massive loss to the retailers that break the street date and to the gamers that buy the games before the release. Yann Suquet says ‘that [gamers’] don’t get that excitement of the first day and some events that we might have had... It would have been more fun if they waited coz they get more out of the launch of the game.’  

A market the size of this country, anywhere between 3-5% of the global market, is insignificant in comparison to some of the big European or US markets and if this becomes the norm and games like Skyrim, Battlefield 3 and Arkham City continually break street dates, then we are risking a delay put on Australian releases across the board. That’s something we don’t want and something consumers and retailers don’t want but that is the path that we’re going down.  

Last year, there was a lot of confusion surrounding Batman: Arkham City because they broke street date. The confusion stemmed from an issue with the Cat Woman DLC. People were complaining that their codes were not working, yet it hadn’t been activated globally yet as the game had not officially been released.

Despite the strict rules and guidelines that are given to retailers when they first receive the shipment from the distributors, anything from an indiscreet staff member to a really persistent customer can cause a game to leak. Once this happens all the other stores are forced to do so also or face huge losses. Expensive events like midnight openings and press events are now ruined. 

Retailers will do anything they can to be the first people selling a particular product. This competition is at a whole new level in the gaming industry. Russell Zimmerman, the executive director at the Australian Retailers Association, says if ‘there is anything wrong with the products going to be allowed to be sold say on a particular date, and that means 1 minute past midnight you start selling it. There is nothing wrong with that retailer opening their doors and selling it but for a retailer to go out a day or two days before the marketing date then yes, it’s ethically unreasonable…[it]  does make it difficult for the other retailers.’

 If it breaks street date and somebody hacks it and then there’s hundreds of torrents then nobody buys it. The producers have then made a terrible business decision, by making a great game and that’s depressing. ‘I want to care about making great games and then I want people to spend money on great games so that we have money to make the next great game. That’s what this cycle should be.’ – Seth Olshfki. 

The newest addition to the Star Wars gaming franchise, Star Wars: The Old Republic, broke street date but with a difference. When a global staggered release was set by EA (Electronic Arts, a game products company) for technical reasons, many Australian fans began grey importing, getting copies from overseas. This led some retailers to spurn local distributers, importing copies themselves and selling onto the public. If this trend continues distributers may try and prevent future breaks by online only sales. That in itself will bring more issues.  

This could all potentially come back to affect the Australian consumers. Stores may no longer accept pre-orders, they may stock lower quantities or not receive copies of the game right up until the very day of release. Australia is a big country and there are logistics in moving a shipment and products around. So that could mean that customers may not have it on the actual release day if you live in Alice Springs and it doesn’t get there in time.  

This issue needs to be addressed and though it is also the responsibility of the retailers to follow the guidelines of game release, it is also the responsibility of the gamers to maintain the integrity of the gaming industry. Don’t be the ‘feeder’ that everyone hates.  

Episode 10: Talkin' 'bout my Generation

For today's episode of the Comrade Contrary files I want to not so much discuss an issue but rather talk about observations I have made about the world around me. More and more I am struck by the way society evolves. I myself grew up in the '90s and I was lucked with really young parents, they were both 21 when they had me, though some people might argue that this is not a good thing I find and have found it really helpful. When I had teenage issues my parents still had advice that was reasonable up to date, they weren't so far out of their teens that their advice was inapplicable in the society that I was living in. However there are more practical things that I have found there is a large disconnect or gap between what I have been taught and what my parents were taught.

The other day I went to my dad and I asked him if we had the things for me to shine my shoes, he told me yes and pointed me in the direction of the utensils to shine said shoes. When I opened the wooden box with the things in I was confused and taken a-back, inside was several bushes and a tin of black shoe polish. Now some of you older reader of my blog will be able to pick up these things and be able to shine your black shoes. I was not, I was used to a tube with a foam end and you squeeze it on your shoes and they were magically shine. So I took the things to my dad and he just laughed and sat me down and took me though the process of shining my shoes. It was simple enough but I was amazed at how old-fashioned (I say this with lack of a better term) my dad was.

Quite often I am generally shocked at how practical my dad and my grandfather (this may be because he is a farmer but he is the only grandfather I have) are. My poppa has taught me to do so many things that I am amazed that I managed to get through my life to that point without knowing how to do these things. Despite the fact that my poppa can't use a computer and struggles with the microwave on occasion he is amazingly talented at things to do with his hands and practical tasks. He taught me some of the basics of these practical tasks such as basic mechanics, to simple plumbing and electrical problem solving. After learning and knowing things like that I am ashamed to say that I look at people who can't do them and I find them useless, yes there is a thing to be said for the argument that in a modern day society that we have means of fixing the issues without know these what may seem old-fashioned means. I would argue that there is value in having a deeper understanding of the things around you.

Episode 9: From Danniella Westbrook to Northern Slums

For today's instalment of the Comrade Contrary files I am going to take a dip into the world of British media. The British working-class is a commonly referred to as ‘Chavs’, characterized by their rowdy, violent behaviour, track-suit, sneakers and Burberry cap, they are the vilified class. 'The stereotype made famous by Vicky Pollard in the BBC comedy series Little Britain', has been the victim of media attacks for many years.  There are many different interpretations of the term, for instance the Oxford University Press, tells me that a 'chav' is, “a young person, often without a high level of education, who follows a particular fashion”. Meanwhile, the brutally forthright Urban Dictionary argues that a 'chav' is simply a person that is, “completely amoral, having never been subjected to right and wrong by their inattentive, uncaring and often absent parents.” This is an excellent example of the attitude that the middle-class media and the current Prime Minister David Cameron.

There are many excellent examples of the British media vilifying the working-class from the case of Shannon Matthews, to the news coverage of many football games, to the riots in the 1980s and the more recent 2011 riots.

The case of Shannon Matthews is one of the easiest places to start. Shannon Matthews was kidnapped on her way home from a swimming class in February of 2008. Shannon was from a working-class family, her mother had 7 children from 5 different fathers and she lived in the working-class suburb of Yorkshire. This much like any other kidnapping of a young girl was devastating and tragic, though not compared to the way it was depicted, or rather not depicted in the media.
9 months earlier on a family holiday in the Portuguese Algrave, Madeline McCann was kidnapped from her bedroom. There were 1,148 stories in the media and a sum of £2.6 Million in reward money from Sir Richard Branson, the Sun and J.K. Rowling. Madeline McCann became a household name, there were websites everywhere, 'help find Madeline'. Comparatively in the same time period that this was going on Shannon Matthews received one third of the media coverage in the same span of time and the reward for her was only £50, 000 almost all donated by the Sun.

The media portrayed the McCanns as a victim, that ‘kind of thing doesn’t usually happen to people like us’, implying the middle-class people. Which was a startlingly different from Matthews, she was demonized because she wasn’t ‘like us’. The media, dominated by the middle-class was only able to empathize with people of the middle-class. Much-like how the media ignored the ‘north’ and its ‘negligent wasteland’ of slums, they ignored Shannon Matthews. This in turn resulted in the people of Britain focusing on Madeline McCann, she was a household name, whereas Matthews was just another ‘Chav’ who was a victim of ‘a chaotic domestic situation, inflicted by parents on their innocent children, long before she vanished’, because Matthews’ family was not the ‘idealized portrait of middle-class family life’ like the McCanns. Matthews’ family conformed to the ‘Chav’ stereotype and hence, she was pushed to the side. I know that this is old news but it is a good example of a re-occurring theme in the British media that needs to be addressed.

The 2011 London Riots were the result a complex web of political, sociological and psychological causal factors, and a response to the growing disconnect between the political and media classes and the broader mass of British Citizens. The shooting of Mark Duggan by Metropolitan Police showed the harassment with which the British Black community has been faced. Yet it’s amazing that the British police manage to shoot so many people when they are an UNARMED force. The politics of classes shows how the social elite oversimplify the issues that the working-class people are faced with due to the growing divide between them and the elite.

The riots started after the police shooting of Mark Duggan, and began as a peaceful protest but soon escalated to an intensity not seen in Britain since the Brixton riots against Margaret Thatcher’s Tory government in 1981.  The Metropolitan police would suggest that Duggan is a ‘gangster and a drug dealer’ characteristic commonly associated with ‘Chavs’, yet the people that lived with him in his community claimed ‘he never troubled nobody’. The treatment of Duggan was based on this falsehood; the people could see this was not appropriate and revolted. Tottenham has historically been a black community that has had issues with the Police and the government’s social policies such as the stop and search laws. The race riots in ’81 highlighted the constant struggle that the Black community faces in being a minority. The Black community does not trust the police because they view them as racists. As activist and local resident Darius Howe argued ‘you have to feel some weight on your neck, you have to feel somebody strangling you, for you to respond violently and that is precisely what happened in the riots here’. Howe believes it is ‘police behaviour towards black people that’s the root cause of the violence. In particular, the hated stop and search laws that many argue are amount to police harassment’. The shooting of Duggan was the trigger for the community to act on being abused by the institutions for so long.

This is just a small taste of what is a huge issue in Britain at the present time. If you want to get a little bit more of an idea I would suggest Owen Jones' book Chavs; The demonization of the working-class, No such thing as society by Andy Smith and the following links:

http://www.culturecompass.co.uk/2009/03/16/chavs-on-tv/
http://spiltinc.co.uk/2012/05/13/is-it-ever-acceptable-to-call-someone-a-chav/
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/owen-jones-why-chavs-were-the-riots-scapegoats-7697824.html

Episode 8: Would You Eat Your Cat?

For the 8th rendition of the comrade contrary files i am going to look at ethical conundrums. This is a HUGE topic so I will stretch it out over a few posts. For this post I will specifically look at ethical impasses.

Would you eat your cat?
Is it always ok to look at your own photos?
Is it better to be a sexist or a misanthrope?
Are we morally obliged to end the world?
Are we really sorry Hitler existed?
Should we sacrifice one to save five?

Humanity likes to think that all moral questions are black and white. That there is the obvious right and the obvious wrong to choose between. Many people would be discouraged to find out that this is not the case and not all of those people would be fundamentalist Christians or people of the like. These people would be even more discouraged when they are faced with moral questions that have no answer at all.

People like to be right and to have the 'moral high ground', people will disagree about whether euthanasia is morally acceptable and there is a reasonably clean cut argument for both sides. There are however ethical conundrums where it is foggy about where we even begin to commence thinking about these issues and the more we examine their various moral complexities the more confused we become.

Welcome to the world of eating pets, runaway trains and demagogues who want to end the world.

Would you eat your cat?
"Betty Slocombe's cat was killed in a tragic accident with an out of control lawnmower. She had heard that cat meat was jolly tasty, so she cut up her cat, cooked it, and ate it for dinner. To date, she has never regretted her culinary experiment and she claims not to have suffered any harm as a result of cooking and eating Fopsy."

http://www.philosophyexperiments.com/

Is it better to be a sexist or a misanthrope?
"Harold Carpenter and Lou Bishop are neighbours in sun-kissed Erinsford, a town nestled on the Humberside Rivera. Harold, unfortunately, does not share the sunny disposition of his home town. He's a misanthrope. He dislikes people - a lot. He doesn't have friends, and he views his acquaintances with barely concealed contempt. Harold is very much an equal opportunity misanthrope - he dislikes men, women, straights, gays, blacks, whites and one-legged people with an equal intensity. To his credit, he is aware that his misanthropy is a problem, so he keeps to himself as much as possible. Nevertheless, he is certainly a negative force in the world, subtracting from rather than adding to the sum total of human happiness.

Lou Bishop is a different Kettle of fish altogether. He likes most people a lot. He considers even his neighbours to be good friends, and treats nearly everybody he meets with consideration and kindness. However, he is an unreconstructed male chauvinist. He believe that men are intellectually superior to women, and thinks that the 'fairer sex' are really only suited to be homemakers. He cannot cope with 'modern women' at all: as far as he is concerned, women should be kept as far away as possible from manly pursuits such as money making and playing golf. Lou is aware that society frowns upon his sexism, so he tries to avoid modern women as much as he can. Nevertheless, in his dealings with them, he is definitely a negative force in the world, subtracting from rather than adding to the sum of human happiness.

FURTHER FACTS ABOUT HAROLD AND LOU:
1. Harold treats 'modern' women worse than Lou treats them. Not because he's a sexist - he isn't - just because he doesn't like other people.
2. Lou treats everybody better than Harold treats anybody.
3. Harold does not discriminate whereas Lou does. Harold would employ a woman to do a job if she was the best candidate. Lou would not."

Would you eat your cat?, Jeremy Stangroom

There are 2 conundrums for you to mull over at your leisure. As this was a very heavy handed post I leave you with a more light-hearted question.

"You are in Berlin, 1933. Somehow, you find yourself in a position where you can effortlessly steal Hitler's wallet. This theft will not affect Hitler's rise to power, the nature of WW2, or the Holocaust. There is no important identification in the wallet, but the act will cost Hitler forty Reichsmarks and completely ruin his evening. You do not need the money. The odds that you will be caught committing this act are less than 2 percent. Are you ethically obligated to steal Hitler's wallet?"

From here: http://i.imgur.com/KM74P.jpg

Episode 7: A Good Man and A Bad Deed

The 7th rendition of the Comrade Contrary files is going to take a turn for the serious, particularly after last nights dip into the Marvel comiverse. The subject of this post is the Honorable former Australian high court Chief Justice, Sir Anthony Mason (if you will excuse his long title).

This man is one of my political heroes. For those of you whom are not familiar with him, he handed down the Mabo2 decision in June 1992. This is one of several cases that marked the beginning of a change to reform to include the Native Australians. This case is one of the best known in Australia, it is one of the first cases that is introduced to any legal studies student in the country because it was so big.

For those of you who don't know what happened; a case "led by Eddie Mabo, David Passi and James Rice, all from the Meriam people (from the Murray Islands in the Torres Strait). They commenced proceedings in the High Court in 1982, in response to the Queensland Amendment Act 1982 establishing a system of making land grants on trust for Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders, which the Murray Islanders refused to accept. The Plaintiffs were represented by Ron Castan, Bryan Keon-Cohen and Greg McIntyre.
The action was brought as a test case to determine the legal rights of the Meriam people to land on the islands of Mer (Murray Island), Dauar and Waier in the Torres Strait, which were annexed to the state of Queensland in 1879. Prior to British contact the Meriam people had lived on the islands in a subsistence economy based on cultivation and fishing. Land on the islands was not subject of public or general community ownership, but was regarded as belonging to individuals or groups.
In 1985 the Queensland Government attempted to terminate the proceedings by enacting the Queensland Coast Islands Declaratory Act 1985, which declared that on annexation of the islands in 1879, title to the islands was vested in the state of Queensland "freed from all other rights, interests and claims whatsoever". In Mabo v Queensland (No 1) (1988) the High Court held that this legislation was contrary to the Racial Discrimination Act 1975."

This case debunked the argument that Australia was founded by the English under Terra Nullius, it was a big step forward for the Australian government. The reason now that I am questioning Sir Anthony's place on my list of political heroes is because of an event that happened on November 11th, 1975. This was the dismissal of Labor Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam by Governor General, Sir John Kerr. This was a controversial issue as Kerr had been discussing with the opposition leader, Malcom Fraser, as well as Whitlam had been immensely popular with the public, however his economics was not very fitting for the times and was sending the country bankrupt.

Recently, 'the record was uncovered by the Whitlam biographer Jenny Hocking, whose book Gough Whitlam: His Time will be published next month. Hocking says Kerr's records suggest ''Mason was not merely the third man: he was, in many ways, the man''.' The correct response here is OH MY GOD! This is a massive corruption of powers, not only that but it is massively tainting to the image that people like me have of Mason.

This is upsetting for many reasons but I think the biggest one is, many people know of the Mabo cases yet people don't remember the Judge. People will remember Mason as the "third man in Whitlam's downfall' and not one of the men who helped start the stand against discrimination against Aboriginals.

Episode 6: The Black Widow

This is a slight diverge from my Blog but rather an argument response to a friend of mine, feel free to read or ignore.
I recently watched the Marvel film, The Avengers and one of the first things that struck me was why Black Widow is a member of the Avengers? Upon wondering this I brought it up with one of my good friends who is quite a big fan of the movie and she claims that she is a very important character and that it would be laughable had she not been present in the Superhero squad. I however claim that she has no place on the squad as she herself possess no superpowers and hence not a superhero.
Her listed abilities include many higher order skills; The Black Widow is a world class athlete, gymnast, acrobat, aerialist capable of numerous complex manoeuvres and feats, expert martial artist (including karate, judo, ninjutsu, aikido, savate, various styles of kung fu, and boxing), marksman, and weapons specialist as well as having extensive espionage training. She is also an accomplished ballerina. Yes a Ballerina…(no offense to Ballerinas)
HOWEVER, these are qualities possessed by the majority of KGB, MI6 and other secret service agents, they are not superpowers. It is for this reason that she should not be a member of the Avengers Squad.
Now this is where you all go what about her “genetic enhancements”? Natasha has received the Red Room's variant of the Super-Soldier Serum. As a result, her physical and mental abilities had been enhanced much like Captain America. This is the equivalent of steroid with a fancy name and yes with that line of argument it also suggests that Captain America should also not be an Avenger, this is true however this is not a dispute about him.
The Black Widow has been enhanced by “biotechnology” that makes her body resistant to aging and disease and heals at an above human rate (this is a dressed up equivalent of immunisations and anti-aging methods such as caffeinated creams and Botox, nothing inaccessible to everyone) as well as psychological conditioning that suppresses her memory of true events as opposed to implanted ones of the past without the aid of specially designed system suppressant drugs (everyone’s brains already do this, they are referred to as defence mechanisms that were extensively explored by Freud and this is done without adding artificial substances to the body). Not to mention that all of these experiments undertaken by the soviets have rendered her body infertile.
Due to the Super-Soldier Serum, the white blood cells in her body are efficient enough to fight off any microbe, foreign body and others from her body, keeping her healthy and immune to most, if not all infections, diseases and disorders (I admit that this is a positive to the experiments that is difficult to replicate in reality but similar drugs can be found in most hospitals ICU’s). Also, it takes quite a bit for Natasha to become intoxicated (Awesome, so I won’t be starting a drinking contest with her sometime soon.)

Now you say that “even if Natasha was not genetically enhanced, she wouldn’t be the only Avenger without superpowers. For example, Sharon Carter, daughter of Peggy Carter is a member of the Avengers. However her skills are based on training, not test tubes and gamma radiation. Keeping her company is Clint Barton, a.k.a Hawkeye who “has no superhuman powers (with the exception of the period when using Pym particles to become Goliath), he is at the very peak of human conditioning; he is an exceptional fencer, acrobat and a grandmaster marksman, having been trained from childhood in the circus and by the criminals Trick Shot and Swordsman. This includes considerable strength, as a supervillain found out when he tried to use the superhero’s 250 pounds-force (1,100 newtons) draw weight bow and found that he could not draw back the string to launch an arrow. Hawkeye has also been thoroughly trained by Captain America in tactics, martial arts, and hand-to-hand combat. Hawkeye excels in the use of ranged weapons, especially the bow and arrow, and carries a quiver containing a number of customized “trick arrows”.” My dear this only strengthens my argument and a reminder that we are debating Black Widows membership to the Avenger superhero squad.

“Hawkeye has no powers, and neither does Sharon Carter. Both are fully-fledged members of the Avengers despite this. This means that even if Natasha had no powers, there would be no grounds to refute her membership based on her lack of powers, since it would also mean denying membership to two other major characters in the Marvel comicverse. (I’m sorry what?) Not including any other Avengers without superpowers that I may have missed.” I am not sure what you were trying to suggest here but my dear what you have presented is no argument to her membership but rather an attempt to justify her presence on the squad with other members. Other members that should also be scrutinised, if the “Avengers Superhero Squad” claims to be a superhero squad it should be a squad of superheros if not it should not claim to be.

Episode 5: Escape

"If you like Piña Coladas, and getting caught in the rain.
If you're not into yoga, if you have half-a-brain.
If you like making love at midnight, in the dunes of the cape.
I'm the lady you've looked for, write to me, and escape."


For the 5th rendition of the Comrade Contrary files the subject with be relationships.

*

Let me stop you right there, despite the fact I am destined to fail this will attempt to be as entertaining as a Michael Bay film.....without Pamela Voorhees and Freddy Krueger... The slower ones of you may still be struggling with the connection between the Piña Colada song and relationships, because I mean seriously what do coconut and pineapple rum have to do with relationships? Well...the song is about a man who is awake in bed at night with his partner yet is unsatisfied with the relationship. So he picks up the newspaper and starts reading the 'lonely hearts' section. There he finds an article written by a woman looking for her perfect man. The article reads; 'if you like Piña Coladas, and getting caught in the rain, if you're not into yoga, if you have half-a-brain. If you like making love at midnight, in the dunes of the cape. I'm the lady you've looked for, write to me, and escape.' Upon reading this the man writes back; yes I like Piña Coladas and getting caught in the rain, I'm not much into health food, more into champagne, I'll meet you at a bar called O'Malley's, there we will plan our escape. As you can imagine they meet fall in love and run away together, the song concludes.

Now, very few relationships are this simple, particularly since the number of people that like Piña Coladas has significantly dropped since the late 70's, those people also tend to be pirates. Still the principle is there that if two people like something that is obscure they will most likely rather be together than with someone who doesn't share that interest. However please do not think that I am endorsing affairs or breaking up with your partner because you found someone better, that is a pretty nasty thing to do, but some people work better than others. This is a fact that anyone who has been in more than 3 relationships will understand, and just because you do not fit well together as a couple doesn't mean you can't be friends (but don't push yourself or the other person).

Still on that note this concludes today's blog post before it gets too sappy, on an end note;

'Yes, I like  Piña Coladas, and getting caught in the rain.
I'm not much into health food, I am into champagne.
I've got to meet you by tomorrow noon, and cut through all this red tape.
At a bar called O'Malley's, where we'll plan our escape.'

* SIDE NOTE: This is not intended to be derogatory to any homosexuals I myself am one, this was solely intended as a pop-culture reference and nothing more. If you have a problem with it, comment and I will remove it, if you have a problem with it in general, write to your local member of parliament and have your government take steps to minimize the  derogatory terms towards minorities.

Episode 4: The Chicken or The Egg

Which came first the chicken or the egg? An age long debate that is still unanswered. The subject of episode 4 of the Comrade Contrary files poses a similar question, what came first, people or society?

*DISCLAIMER*
THE VIEWS OUTLINED IN THIS ARE SOLELY MY OPINION AND I AM VERY OPEN TO DISPUTE THIS WITH ANYONE SO LONG AS THEY UNDERSTAND I AM NOT CLAIMING THAT THE FOLLOWING IS FACT BUT RATHER EVIDENCE INTERPRETED IN A PRAGMATIC WAY TO SUPPORT MY IDEAS.

Every person on the planet has an agenda, this is what influences what we say and how we act. This agenda is influenced by this thing we call society.
But what about outliers? What about the people who rebel? What happens with them? Their actions are not fueled by societies influential agenda.

Now that's where you're wrong. Without society, those people wouldn't know what to rebel against. People underestimate the power society has over people's actions.

But why is the initial idea of rebellion there? It's not society causing the rebellion, simply giving rebellion shape. It doesn't explain why people rebel, simply giving them a model to rebel against. I'm not disputing society's importance in defining what to do and what not to do, I'm simply questioning how the basis of the idea came around in the first place. Society was formed by something, but where did the idea of that something come from?

An act  cannot be considered rebellious if there is no codified or otherwise accepted code of conduct. Society is an aggregate collection of people living together in a harmonious group. Whether people like it or not, as long as people have lived together society has existed. Even those that rebel, are only seeking to change the rules to suit a society that they want. Unless you are a hermit living under the earth in an impenetrable cave everyone is a member of society, outliers and rebels included.

I guess coming to that conclusion also defies this as a chicken or the egg question. Whether you accept creationism or evolution, there has always been society.

Episode 3: Time Immemorial

*chants*
WHAT DO WE WANT?
TIME TRAVEL!
WHEN DO WE WANT IT?
IRRELEVANT....

Yes time travel, parallel dimensions and infinite universes. For your third installment of The Comrade Contrary Files we have taken a turn for the nerd, I thought we would visit an idea that has racked mankind for what would seem like time immeemorial. According to Wikipedia; the greatest thing since Microwave Brownies, "time travel is the concept of moving between different points in time in a manner analogous to moving between different points in space. Time travel could hypothetically involve moving backward in time to a moment earlier than the starting point, or forward to the future of that point without the need for the traveler to experience the intervening period (at least not at the normal rate). Any technological device – whether fictional or hypothetical – that would be used to achieve time travel is commonly known as a time machine."

Eisenstein said for time travel to occur (please note that this is grossly oversimplified due to the fact I am no physicist and I cannot count past 22 because after that I run out of fingers and toes.) you need to break the light barrier.(travel at the speed of light) When an object travels at the speed of light and over the linear appearance of time is warped. (Though time appears linear in the 3rd dimension (our world) time is more of a 'wibbley wobbly timey wimey" mass) When this occurs the faster you travel the more time effectively folds back on itself to cause a time jump. With this in mind, theoretically anything can be a time machine if you are able to make it travel fast enough.

Now the concept of time travel appears in most Sci-fi shows at one point or another, or if you are Doctor Who, its the entire show. There are many ethical issues and other problems associated with traveling in time besides being able to travel at the speed of light. Backward time travel would have the potential to introduce paradoxes related to causality, and a variety of hypotheses have been proposed to resolve them, as discussed in the sections Paradoxes and Rules of time travel. And well there are many issues about knowing the future, many of them visited in the BBC Series Red Dwarf.

Episode 2: Ignorance is Bliss

The Comrade Contrary Files Act 2 Scene 1

To know or not to know. That is the question.

I am a knowledge-is-power, the-truth-will-set-you-free kind of guy.  But I stopped to think about it for awhile more.  Is ignorance really bliss?  Or not?  Never?  Or sometimes?
So I did a little digging about the origin of the phrase and discovered Thomas Gray's famous poem.  There, he nostalgically reminisces about the bliss of youth with its carefree days of playfulness unmarred by the dark realities of adult life.  The poem reveals Gray's double perspective that not only is ignorance bliss but knowledge is misery.

Act 2 Scene 2

We all will experience the pandemonium that is adolescence in our lives, and most of that is well, gossip. Finding out that Marnie kissed Jake behind the toilet block or that Cameron and Tony are now going out. In adolescence there is two kinds of ignorance, there is the dunning-kruger effect and then there is the finding out that your best friend is now dating your crush or ex or baboon. I myself don't much care for adolescent dramas like your best friend dating a baboon. I am however really amused by watching the dunning-kruger effect in motion. For those of you who don't know, the dunning-kruger effect is when someone, usually young, thinks they know everything about everything yet really could not differentiate between a dog and a cat. The smart people are aware that they truly know nothing at all. What I think is the best example of the dunning-kruger effect is those teenage girls who believe they do not need their parents (despite being totally dependent on daddy's pay check), my advice to them; move out, get a job, pay taxes, get married, have kids, QUICK! while you still know everything!

Act 2 Scene 3

Ignorance has its place in life for awhile, though.  Parents protect their children from knowledge which is too much for them to bear, too confusing for their little minds to process.  For some time, children can operate successfully under the "need-to-know basis" of parental protection.  But ignorance in this sense only works if there is an adult mind on the scene to do the protecting.  As we grow and become more independent, we must develop an adult mind of our own (in most cases).  Otherwise, we are in big, big trouble.  It's not hard to imagine what I mean by that, but I like how one person put it: "When you're an adult, ignorance-is-bliss today means you have an STD tomorrow."

Episode 1: Courage

For the first rendition of the Comrade Contrary files, (that's a great name, 'The Comrade Contrary Files")  I present to you a interpretation of a characteristic that has been spoken of for many years, yet I doubt many understand what true courage is. Please note that I do not claim to understand it, nor do I claim to be in any way courageous. Though let me start with this:

“There is a tide in the affairs of men.

Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;

Omitted, all the voyage of their life

Is bound in shallows and in miseries.

On such a full sea are we now afloat,

And we must take the current when it serves,

Or lose our ventures.”

                                  - Brutus, Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar

This quote is the basis of my blog and yes I should have explained this in the first blog but sue me. Shakespeare is famous for his plays and ability to write about people in a way unique for his time, however don't quote me on that I am no English academic, but he was able to express events in a way that resonated with all of society. Personally I think this quote perfectly captures the way that life is.

Courage is a part of life and it can take many forms. There is the courage that is shown through a soldier who stands on the front line, ready to to be riddled with holes all for the sake of politics. There is the courage shown when a man has been sitting in a bar for hours looking at a beautiful woman, trying to muster up the nerve to buy her a drink. A school girl shows courage when she walks through the halls of her school wearing an outfit that wouldn’t be the popular kid’s idea of cool. Then there is the courage when a 9 year old boy presents his first oral presentation on how bees make honey. But then there is the courage that a 4 year old child shows when their mother turns the light off for the night and the darkness engulfs their room.

Pericles said that “others are brave out of ignorance; and , when they stop to think, they begin to fear. But the man who can most truly be accounted brave is he who best knows the meaning of what is sweet in life and of what is terrible, and then goes out undeterred to meet what is to come.”

Atticus Finch said that “courage is not a man with a gun in his hand. It’s knowing you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.”

Churchill said that “success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts”, he also said that “courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.”

Now I understand that this 'episode' has turned to that of a philosophical nature but hear me out. I am not sure who of these men is right in assessing the true meaning of courage, somehow I think they are all right, though here I loan the words of Mark Twain, “courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear”. I think that maybe Mark Twain has it right. Maybe courage is not being without fear, but rather knowing that you are scared and taking it with you, having the strength to know that you are not perfect. That you are, riddled with holes, may be rejected, that the popular kids think that your skirt is ugly, pronouncing the word wrong that your father insisted you include, and knowing that the monsters are coming to get you; yet still being able to be there and chose to take the path where you will fail. If you really fail is questionable, but maybe courage is being scared and being able to carry it with you.

And then it was dawn...

"To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else, means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight. And never stop fighting."

E.E. Cummings said that, as a teenager I can understand this quite well, though I write this blog with the intention to maybe help the world or perhaps myself understand things a little better. I doubt it will be informative but rather an exploration of existence, the 'tides in the affairs of men'. If you are reading this you have already put enough faith in me to read my blog, maybe try a little more faith to keep reading and understand the small yet ever so complicated cosmic space that is my life.